I rode next to the wagons, on Fauna. Cyric made no attempt to speak with me, though he looked after me periodically. It seemed that nothing I said or realized would have such a great effect on him that he would behave differently or quit his duties.
It was mid-afternoon when the high peaks which had been looming on our left for a long time now came near enough to be recognized as the Peaks of Geryon. Only for me though, or soldiers like me who had never been past here. Certainly Cyric had known all along what those mountains were. The soldiers went wild with the sight, speaking of nothing but wyverns for hours and bringing to my mind every tale or song I'd ever heard about the dark creatures' home. There were rumors that it had once belonged to a race that were in height and color something between a man and frost giant. That the wyverns had been given to them originally as a granted animal. But that the beasts, in their hunger for death, had killed their owners, wiping them out completely. Others thought the wyverns were wild granted animals, others thought them not to be granted animals at all.
It was spoken little of nowadays, but there had been a time when the identity of animals as granted or simply magical had been a thing of great controversy. As with Cyric's ivoronsu, or even the giant arachnids that had attack Minstrel and I. I was one to believe that all creatures possessing magical abilities were granted animals. As a member of the country which owned the most highly acknowledged class of granted animals, this was an unusual position for me to take.
But then, I supposed that dragons weren't a race any longer.
When a wyvern actually distanced itself from the mountain and came to soar over our procession the soldiers seemed prepared to try Cyric's tactic straightaway. Many pulled their crossbows out. But Cyric hailed it and the goblin-manned wyvern took a direct plunge towards Tosch. The whole march came to a stop. Cyric looked as other-wordly as ever speaking with the goblin; level to a wyvern’s mouth and only feet away. In the dark cloudiness, his armor of gold and black looked only black, and his hair looked darker, and golden only a little at the tips.
The wyvern flew off with a mighty screech. Cyric called a horse-riding soldier to him and they spoke for a long time as we continued on. It was another few hours of travel, now through a wide crag of grey stone, with higher rocks in the distance, then Cyric displayed a change in procedure. He called a group of men, horsemen, one at a time from the division and sent them to a break in the side of the crag; a narrow, high-walled, bent sort of hollow. He did not go to the wagons, but I already knew from the one time that we had seen each other in the tent this morning, that he had loaded the satchels which now hung on Tosch with most of his things.
I wore my uniform-made riding gear today, and I doubted that I would be changing into anything else for the remainder of the trip.
Lastly Cyric turned his eyes on me, and with a straight and direct nod, called me to him. Fauna bore the brunt of that mission, which was well for I did not think that I could have. Cyric's Second wasted no time in drawing the division's attention from the subtle spectacle with an order to pick up the pace and a promise of reaching the rest of the army, and it's most recent spoils, by the end of the night.
I wondered if our journey would be as short.
"These men know where we're going now, and our real mission," Cyric said, while we rode slowly towards the others. "It won't be easy riding so I want you to stay behind me. Make sure Fauna steps where Tosch does."
I nodded.
He sighed, then he turned ahead and shouted more loudly to the other men, such orders as, two to scout ahead, no falling behind, no dozing off. I wondered if there were something to fear in this pass from the tone he used, and it went a ways in clearing my head and attention for the task to come.
Cyric was right; it was not an easy ride. As one who was used to dragons and chimera, a horse was already jolting, but this degree of bouncing was certainly going to leave me bruised. Two of the ten soldiers riding with us (two more were ahead; we had twelve in all) began to sing before long and that made the way a little better. One, with black hair, and pale skin, had a very fair voice, deep and heady.
"That's a song of your western slopes, isn't it?" I asked him, when they'd finished.
He looked at me with some surprise, along with the soldiers.
"From Birmha," I went on. "It's sung for harvest time in the fields? I've heard it before."
"Are you familiar with many songs, Princess?" one of them dared to ask, while the others were still saying nothing.
"I have heard a good many in my day," I admitted.
The narrow passage opened up just then into a wide space, grey with dust so that its edges couldn't quite be seen. It was a nice break from the tight quarters of the chasm. Even the sky was a cloudy roof instead of rock. Finding the path onwards seemed to absorb Cyric's full attention.
"I suppose that would be the case," one added, "with a princess of Shaundakul."
"I've heard they weren't into bards much at all there," another said, "neither bards nor parties."
"Nor drinking, nor fun of any sort."
"Fool. The princess is here before us, and she's fun enough, just ask the Lieutenant."
"She likes songs at least," another put in.
"Quiet," Cyric suddenly ordered. He held his hand up, but he faced forward and no one seemed to know how seriously to take him.
"You've done it now," one of the men whispered, "The Lieutenant's a Shaundakulian and here you've been insulting his homeland."
The offending soldier looked displeased but said nothing because Tosch had begun to make a great deal of noise. Cyric moved at a quicker pace into the mist and I stayed so concentrated on remaining just behind him that I didn't notice until he'd jumped down from Tosch that there were four figures on the ground ahead of us. Two small and close by, the others large and yards off. I began to feel a disconcerting gnaw in my stomach as Cyric took his booted steps to the nearest pair. He bent down and I couldn't see him any longer past Tosch.
"What is it?" I asked. I was sure everyone else had been thinking it.
"Dismount," was his only response. I watched the lot of them do as he said straightaway. "Check those horses," he ordered, directing two fingers in either direction. I dropped down from Fauna and came to stand behind him, tipping my head over his shoulder to see the figures which resided past, while he stared straight ahead and into the smoke. All the rest of the soldiers were inspecting whatever lay there. I had just caught a glimpse of Akadian armor and a sprawled out arm, when Cyric jerked with surprise at my nearness, back-stepped, and faced me. "I didn't tell you to get down."
"You said dismount. What's going on?"
"Lieutenant?" one of the distant soldiers called. “It’s dead.”
"This one isn’t breathing either," the soldier on the opposite side said. There was no doubt about it now. These were the two scouts, and their two horses, and for some reason they were no longer alive.
"It looks like," one of them went on, "it's… been bitten."
"They've been more than bitten," Cyric said. He kept his eyes still on the smoke and turning in all directions.
"What do you mean?" I asked. I tried to push past one of the soldiers to reach the body. Cyric grabbed my arm, half-distractedly but hard enough to stop me. All the same I got a look as the Birmian lifted the elbow of one of the fallen figures, letting the hand dangle and watching as it swayed back and forth, wiggling, and maintaining not at all the shape an arm should. "His bones are gone," the soldier said.
I gasped, spared a glance for the surrounding rocks and smoke, then pulled my hand free from Cyric to cover my mouth. "It’s the Chupacabra," I said.
"The what?"
I swirled around, my throat going dry. I swore I could hear the drumming already, the pebbles rumbling around us.
“It’s the— They’re—” I wasn’t sure how to explain them, since in actuality I had never gotten the chance to see them. Then I remembered Minstrel’s song. "Furless beasts with dog-like faces. Hid i
n smoke and rocky places. Sky turns grey and best beware. Chupacabra do live there. Travelers, leave these fiends alone, for they feast on human bones."
"Is it a monster?" a soldier asked.
I clung to Cyric's arm, the one which held his sword. "It's the Chupacabra, Cyric. They're real."
He looked around; didn’t shrug me off, but didn’t seem to quite believe me either.
"This horse looks as if the job was only half done," a distant soldier said.
“Back to me,” Cyric commanded, and the soldiers obeyed.
Tosch, Fauna, and the other horses began to whinny and clop their hooves. It grew so loud that I didn't realize for a moment that the drumming had started, truly it had started. I squealed. “We need to run, Cyric. Before they start—”
But then it was too late, because the low, eerie, chanting began, while shadows grew in the smoke.
Tika tanu mai
Tika tanu mai
Tika—
Thwat. Almost as soon as it had started, the chanting stopped dead. I couldn’t think of why. I remembered the song well and I knew it had been longer than that. Then I noticed Cyric was holding a crossbow, one he must have taken off the back of his nearest soldier. It was aimed at the line of shadowy figures, and as I watched, a body at the center of the line slumped to the earth.
My jaw went slack, and I looked at Cyric much how I imagined the chupacabra might be beyond the mist. “What’s wrong with you?” I demanded.
“It was annoying.”
A loud outcry of howls, and scraping, and moaning started beyond the smoke. And then the shadows were all surging forward as one.
“Do you even know how many there are?” I said.
He didn’t answer me. His soldiers all drew their weapons. He shouted something that I didn’t understand, but it made them all go into a certain formation. With a grimace I reached for the knife in his belt and pulled it out. He gave me a glance-over but kept his focus ahead.
When the beasts emerged from the smoke he moved out to meet them first.
#
I watched one of the soldiers swing a decapitated chupacabra head by its hair. Like the rest the beasts’ bodies it was all covered in fur. It had a snout for a nose and teeth that protruded past its mouth.
I shuttered at the grotesque sight, or it may just have been our surroundings. Cyric had decided we would make camp in the chupacabra’s lair (they wouldn’t be needing it anymore, anyways). It was reached by circular holes in the wall of the crag, and inside was a large cavern, much taller than it was round, as tall as the walls outside. It looked a bit like I would imagine the inside of a beehive to be, only made of rock. More than one bright fire had been lit to fill the space—to say nothing of the bonfire outside which had been started to burn the dead chupacabra.
Seven of the ten remaining soldiers sat close by in the cavern, but despite the distraction of the soldier with his dangling, chupacabra head, my thoughts were all for the recent battle. I was proud of myself; I had fought well. And the soldiers had fought well too, well enough to make up for the fact that we were so greatly outnumbered.
Oh, but it wasn’t the soldiers or myself who I thought of. I thought of Cyric’s fighting, for it had been extraordinary. Since becoming a Cirali Warrior, I had gained a much greater appreciation for being in a battle, for fighting of any sort. Battles weren’t easy, wielding swords, and dodging, and handling the fear,… Perhaps it was even the royal side of me that could so greatly appreciate an expert fighter. Good fighters meant safety, and security, and less citizens killed. To think of the way he’d swung his sword and shouted orders both at once… a knot grew in my stomach, and I felt inexplicably (or rather too explicably) that I was angry with my father.
The soldier dropped the chupacabra head and it went rolling down a slant of rock. Three of the others groaned in disgust. Two laughed. They began in with comments, about how frightening the creatures had been, or how they might have managed to suck out bones. Sadly one of the soldiers had gotten a nip to the shoulder, and only with medicinal treatment had been eased from pain enough for him to fall asleep.
Two figures ducked back into the cavern. The first gave away his identity with just his pronounced steps, but my eyes were on the fire as I hugged my knees. All but one of the soldiers had left this fire for me; it was perched on a sort of ledge, away from the others.
Cyric and his partner dropped a number of bags beside the other soldiers, then Cyric went about instructing them on what order they should take in watch. Two of them were already outside with the tethered and unsaddled horses. I was sure then that he would sit with them, but instead he came to my campfire. Carrying a bedroll, he kicked his boot at the soldier beside me and instructed him to take the chupacabra’s head back outside where it belonged.
Then he sat down where the soldier had been, and held his hand out. “I’ll take my knife back now.”
I scoffed, more at myself than him; of course this had been the reason he’d come close. “I left it outside,” I said.
“Nice try. I can see it.”
I looked at my side where I’d tried to conceal the weapon under straps; I thought he must have been paying awfully close attention to have noticed it, but then Cyric always had noticed everything.
“What if there are more monsters?”
“Then you can stay back with the horses where you should have been the whole time.”
“How can you say that? I helped.”
“Aye. I’ve never seen a princess fight so well,” one of the soldiers chimed in. It earned him a look from Cyric that meant it was unlikely any of them would be commenting again.
I raised my brows in challenge at Cyric all the same.
He held my gaze a moment, then dropped his hand. “Fine. Keep it. It’s not like you’ll use it.” This remark filled me with enough indignance to make me glad he’d be leaving now. Only he didn’t.
I eyed the bedroll he’d set beside him. I didn’t think that we would be sharing a tent tonight—not that we had last night. Some of the soldiers were already sprawled out on their mats.
I studied Cyric as he watched the fire. He was quite dirtied from the battle; we all were, though I at least had taken care to clean my face. He leaned back on his hands, and the gold chain that held my stone glinted at his neck. It was so thin that I wondered it didn’t break in such a battle as we had just fought. The actual stone was safely beneath his armor; I thought about whether it would be possible to smash my knife-hilt against his mail and break it.
“The last time I faced the chupacabra,” I began, “It was in Karatel, just after I’d left Akadia. I was with my friend, Minstrel. He knew something about them, but neither of us had weapons to fight, so we ran. Well, we probably would have run no matter what. But Minstrel, he’s a gnome from Gilgatrox, so he couldn’t run fast enough at all and I had to carry him. I carried him for perhaps an hour until we had cleared the pass.” I laughed a little; Cyric continued to stare at the fire, making no indication that he even heard me. “It was so difficult to do,” I went on, “even though he probably wasn’t even that heavy, and all I could think the whole time was how often you’d picked me up and carried me from place to place, wondering that it had probably been just as hard for you all along. Do you remember the time I broke my slipper out by the ruins? and I was in such a state about it that you carried me back to the Keep. Well, I found I liked it so much after that that I started pretending to get upset over just about anything so that you’d carry me. Sometimes I would go out just so that I might be carried back. Isn’t that such a silly way for a princess to behave? And never once to give a thought as to whether it was hard for you or not. I fancied instead that you enjoyed it.”
There. He finally looked. But his expression was all anger and intensity.
“Now I think that you probably didn’t,” I mumbled.
“You’re very foolish, Ellia,” he said straightly.
“I’ve just been telling you that myself, haven’t I
?”
“I don’t know how you go on for how foolish you are.”
“Fine. I know you think this way already. Why waste your breath saying it again.”
“I’ll say it as often as I like.”
“Then I will stare at you as often as I like. And I’ll tell you how I’ve missed you as often as I like. What’s the point of hiding it when I know you can see right through me anyways!”
His face flushed with color, but now I had gone and spoken to loud and more than one of the soldiers looked over and nearly all of them went silent. Despite my threats, I was not able to continue looking at him. I jerked to my feet and left the cave. I would have liked to go on marching to the other side of the wide chasm, but I knew I wouldn’t be allowed. I passed the watchmen and went to hide beside Fauna. I willed that Cyric would let me be here, and it seemed after a moment that he would. My face burned hot. I felt as if I wasn’t sure that I hadn’t lost my sense of what I should be doing here, of what was right and what was wrong, and who I was. Weren’t battles still waging? Weren’t people still dying? And wasn’t I on the opposite side of Cyric? Yet at the same time, I had never felt more sure of who I was and what I was doing.
I brought to mind the caves of dreams and nightmares. More than once, my time in Akadia had reminded me of them, of being presented with my desires. Cyric, Shaundakul, my rightful position. But it had been easy for me to resist in Akadia. I hadn’t even wanted it, not like that. Even Cyric I hadn’t wanted. If he chose to be evil, that, to me, meant the end of us. These lessons I had learned in the cave, and perhaps that was what had made me ready.
But then he’d kissed me, and I’d seen who he was; now everything he did, every way he responded made me more sure that he was not evil. That he had only convinced himself to be, that he was confused, and scared. This was Cyric Dracla. He was my best friend. I knew him. He’d been mine from the moment I’d seen him, I’d decided this.
Fallen Kingdom (Fallen Trilogy book 2) Page 15